


Only You and Me

by MiHnn



Category: The Borgias
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-27
Updated: 2012-08-27
Packaged: 2017-11-12 23:56:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/497095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiHnn/pseuds/MiHnn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is still good in this world, she thinks. He gives her that hope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only You and Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DarkSeraphim](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkSeraphim/gifts).



Her father used to pull her on his lap, curl his fingers around her golden strands and make her giggle. He was not the Pope then, just a man with his daughter and the sense of pride in his eyes. 

He used to tell her stories of those who had been great and those who had failed to be more than what they were meant to be. _You are as golden as sunshine with the hope of mankind in you_ , he used to say. _You are meant for greatness, my daughter, and you will never fail. Men will bow before your beauty and women will want to claim you as their own blood. You are a Borgia. You will lead the people someday and you will be venerated among all others_.

Those were the stories Lucrezia Borgias was given when she was a child. Her brothers were raised to serve—the papacy, Rome—but she was meant to lead. 

Her father had made her a promise that she never forgot. As a Borgias, she did what was asked for her, placing family first, the nation second and her own needs last. She was a pawn in her father’s plans and she didn’t resent it in the slightest. She was meant for greatness, and surely her father would never place her in a position where she wasn’t allowed to bloom like the flower he has always told her she was. 

So when her betrothal was arranged, Lucrezia did not flinch away from her duty. She accepted the hand offered with the hope of making her father proud. 

He told her she would be a leader. She would be the most unselfish leader she could be.

* * *

Her husband is a tyrant with no kindness in him. He takes what he wants leaving her bruised and battered. Each meeting leaves her empty, the tears trailing down her cheeks a burning reminder of pain as she touches her soft flesh and weeps. 

She remembers how her father used to promise her the world, and part of her hates him for giving her such hopes and dreams. She’s a prisoner in her own home (although she has only ever had one home which was wherever her brother was, and this cold, hard place could never make her feel as safe as she once did with Cesare).

She prays at first, pleading to her God for deliverance and mercy. She asked the Almighty more than once what she did in her young life to deserve such cruelty. Why should she be forced to feel a man she hated so violently so intimately? Why must she feel the tear of her flesh again and again as he took her despite her screams? Why did God despise her so? All she had ever done was done for the name of her family. 

She prays and prays until her throat hurts from the whispered prayers. And there are moments when she sees the dancing flames of the lit candles and wonder if it would hurt less to feel fire lick her skin.

* * *

His name is Paolo. 

He looks at her when he thinks she can’t see him, a small glance with a shy smile before he ducks his head quickly and looks away. She finds him charming and sweet, not at all like the hard surroundings where she has been living in.

At first, it’s only his gestures that fascinate her. He’s young, she could see, from the way he moves, the way he does his chores. So young and innocent with a dash of naivety that makes her heart ache. She longs for such mindless innocence of her youth. She has grown too old and too fast, her young body in battle with the woman her mind has become. So she watches him secretly, the way he acts, the way he speaks and her fingers twitch with the need to touch him. Because, she tells herself, maybe if her skin touches his, she wouldn’t feel so alone or so used. Maybe, she tells herself, his innocence would be embedded in her skin and she would forget. 

He fascinates her. That is all. Yet…

* * *

He makes her smile. He says such sweet words with such sincerity that she can’t help but believe him. He looks at her like he could scarcely believe that she exists. He tells her with stumbling words that her beauty is beyond any he had ever seen. She knows that he’s but a simple boy. He hasn’t travelled the world and seen the women who’s beauties are beyond her own; but his tone, the way his eyes darken, make her blush like she was a maid, and even though her husband has taken the pleasure of the flesh away from her, she feels excitement stir inside her whenever he smiles.

Then one day his hand mistakenly brushes hers and Lucrezia laughs, because God has not been so cruel as to allow her husband to take everything. She can still touch, she can still feel, and as she looks into his embarrassed gaze, she knows that she can still _want_.

* * *

His lips are sweet against hers when they kiss for the first time. Her breath hitches, just like his, and her eyes darken mirroring his gaze. 

They know it’s wrong, just as they know that her husband is cruel. If he knew of such a thing…

But she can’t let him go; not yet. So when he pulls back, she follows him with her lips, urging, coaxing, _begging_ him to take her and to make her his. She feels the way he hardens against her as his arms go around her and she feels like she is drowning. But it’s divine and perfect, and she didn’t want it ever to end. 

His fingers are clumsy, his kisses inexperienced, but his actions only make her heart expand, his words of loving adoration making her pull him closer until they were skin against skin with nothing else between them.

And there’s pleasure. She never knew that a touch could make her keen, that a kiss could make her moan his name. She touches him, pulls him closer and vows never to let him go. Just then he whispers his love for her and Lucrezia feels her toes curl.

* * *

She spends her nights as a dutiful wife, but during the day, sitting under a tree with Paolo with an apple in her hand as they laugh and share kisses, Lucrezia feels young once again. 

She doesn’t need the name Borgia, she realises. Just Paolo, she thinks, as he bites her shoulder and makes her laugh.

Just Paolo.


End file.
